Golf
Norman plays traffic cop
2011-11-15 11:24
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Melbourne - Presidents Cup captain Greg Norman played traffic cop on Monday after the Internationals team bus got stuck in a busy Melbourne road coming back from dinner.
The bus driver bottomed the bus out on a raised partition in the middle of the road, forcing the players to pile off and dodge traffic to allow the driver to plot an exit.
Rather than call for an fleet of courtesy cars, Norman and a group of players flagged oncoming cars down to allow the bus to get out of the jam.
"He was backing it out onto Bridge Road, which is quite impressive, and KJ (Kim Kyung-tae) and Greg took control and played policeman and stood out in the road.
"The bus got out. It was very impressive, actually," Australian International Geoff Ogilvy told reporters.
The sight of white-haired Norman, an idol in his home country, charging up to a car with his arms waving put at least one driver on edge, however.
"He started winding his window up thinking I must have been coming to take him on or something, I don't know," Norman said with a grin.
"He wound up his window and stood and stared right out. I said, 'Just roll down your window' with a smile on my face, and then he got it and turned around and went back.
"I thought that was a good way to bring a bit of team camaraderie together because it was just spontaneous."
The Internationals are bidding for only their second win in the ninth edition of the Presidents Cup starting on Thursday.
South Africa's Ernie Els is the only playing member to have shared in the team's 1998 victory at the same Royal Melbourne Golf Club venue.
"I was a young man back then," said the 42-year-old triple major winner nostalgically. "I remember (1998 team-mate) Greg was one of my heroes.
"So I feel with a nice, big, strong Aussie contingent we have, I think we can get the crowd on our side and start winning some points.
"We feel like we're on a home base here and want to take advantage of that."